Search results

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the harm to personnel and equipment caused by an external explosion during natural gas explosion venting. The external explosion characteristics induced by the indoor natural gas explosion are the focal points of the investigation.

Computational fluid dynamics technology was used to investigate the large-scale explosion venting process of natural gas in a 6 × 3 × 2.5 m room, and the characteristics of external explosion under different scaled vent size (K_v = A_v/V2/3, 0.05, 0.08, 0.13, 0.18) were numerically analyzed.

When K_v = 0.08, the length and duration of the explosion fireball are 13.39 and 450 ms, respectively, which significantly expands the degree and range of high-temperature hazards. The suitable flow-field structure causes the external explosion overpressure to be more than twice that indoors, i.e. the natural gas explosion venting overpressure may be considerably more hazardous in an outdoor environment than inside a room. A specific range for the K_v can promote the superposition of outdoor rupture waves and explosion shock waves, thereby creating a new overpressure hazard.

Little attention has been devoted to investigating systematically the external explosion hazards. Based on the numerical simulation and the analysis, the external explosion characteristics induced by the indoor large-scale gas explosion were obtained. The research results are theoretically significant for mitigating the effects of external gas explosions on personnel and equipment.

The study identifies nine important research areas and critically maps the structural relationships among supply chain resilience (SCRES) dimensions, namely, vulnerabilities, capabilities, strategies and performance metrics. The analysis also revealed various influential authors, journals, institutions and trending articles, across SCRES literature.

This study performs a bibliometric analysis of 771 articles published over the 32 years from 1988 to 2020, and network analysis in combination with content analysis of 90 most cited articles published in research fronts of SCRES.

The results demonstrate the underlying research areas within the SCRES, which are clustered into nine research themes: (1) conceptual development of SCRES, (2) recent developments of designing resilient supply chain (SC) networks, (3) focus on identifying drivers of SC vulnerability and risks, (4) impact of risks on network resilience, (5) risk assessment to avoid breakdowns/disruptions, (6) measuring resilience approaches/drivers to improve SC performance, (7) building resilient capabilities by integrating other SC dimensions, (8) quantification of SC network and (9) emphasis on developing robustness in SC networks.

This research offers implications for classifying the works in literature based on bibliometric information and network analysis techniques. This can help researchers and practitioners to understand the prominent areas in SCRES and provide guidelines for future research in this area.

This study provides an overview of the evolution of SCRES over time in the domain of supply chain management and also outlines a future research agenda claimed by the trending articles to encourage further investigations in the field of SCRES.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how librarians at the State University of New York College at Buffalo used iPads during one class session of a semester-long library instruction course to increase student engagement, energize the traditional library tour, build collaboration and give students experience using tablet technology in an educational setting.

Librarians provided iPads to groups of students and sent them to photograph different areas of the library during one class session of a semester-long course. Students then uploaded the photographs to a common Web site for class discussion.

Formal and informal student feedback was positive. Students connected with the instructors and with each other, enjoyed discovering library spaces and services and became more comfortable with tablet technology. The project also increased student enthusiasm for the class.

This paper is the first to systematically describe a simple activity that can be used by instruction librarians to incorporate tablets into the curriculum. The method requires minimal time to set up and implement, involves a very short learning curve and is easily adaptable to various mobile devices.

The theme of this keynote address is conceptual puzzles raised by empirical research on conflict management and resolution. Three types of puzzles are highlighted: those that deal with processes, identities, and situations. The process puzzles include some counter‐intuitive implications of negotiating strategies and interaction process dynamics. The identity puzzles include the ways in which identity is negotiated, perceptions of ingroups and outgroups, and the connection between loyalty to groups and collective action. The situation puzzles address attribution issues, the distinction between passive actors and active agents, and the role of history. An attempt is then made to juxtapose the puzzles toward a larger conception of a field that emphasizes change in the phenomena we analyze in research and shape through practice. A number of these ideas are found also in the research of previous IACM lifetime award recipients, with whom connections are made.

This study aims to observe people’s decisions to commit fraud. This study is important in the current time because it provides insights into the development of fraudulent intentions within individuals.

The information used in this study is derived from semi-structured interviews, conducted with 16 high-ranking officials who are employed in Indonesian local government positions.

The study does not have strong evidence to support prior studies assuming that situational factors or social enablers have direct effects on fraud intentions. As suggested, individual factors which are related to moral reasoning (moral judgment and rationalisation) emerge as a consequence of social enablers. The significant role of that moral reasoning is to rationalise any fraud attempt as permissible conduct. As such, when an individual is capable of legitimising his/her fraud attempt into appropriate self-judgement, s/he is more likely to engage in fraudulent behaviours.

This study offers practical prescriptions in guiding the management to develop strategies to curb fraudulent behaviours. The study suggests that moral cognitive reasoning is found to be a parameter of whether fraud is an acceptable option or not. So, an understanding of observers’ moral reasoning is helpful in predicting the likelihood of fraud within an organisation or in detecting it.

This study provides a different perspective on the psychological pathway to fraud. It becomes a complement work for the fraud triangle to explain fraudulent behaviours. Specifically, it provides crucial insights into the underlying motivations that lead individuals to accept invitations to engage in fraudulent activities.

Past research has shown that culture has significant effects on people's evaluation of and responses to risk. Despite this important role, the supply chain risk literature has been silent on this matter. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of cultural value orientations on managerial perception of and responses to a supply disruption risk.

The authors conduct a scenario-based experiment to investigate the effect of cultural value orientations – i.e. individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance – on individuals' perception of risk and supplier switching intention in the face of a supply disruption.

The findings highlight the negative effect of individualism-collectivism on disruption risk perception and switching intention in high uncertain circumstances. However, these relationships are non-significant in relatively less uncertain situations. Moreover, the findings show that the impact of uncertainty avoidance on risk perception and supplier switching is positive and significant in both low and high uncertain circumstances.

Extant research has traditionally assumed that when confronted with disruption risks, managers make decisions using an economic utility model, to best serve the long-term objectives of the firm. This paper draws from advances of behavioural research to show that cultural value orientations influence such decisions through a mediating mechanism of subjective risk perception.

This paper examines how firms of different sizes formulate and implement strategies to achieve fit with an external environment disrupted by a geopolitical event. The context of the study is the pharmaceutical industry and how it managed the supply chain uncertainty created by the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, or Brexit.

Data were collected longitudinally from the pro-Brexit vote on 23 June 2016, until the UK’s departure from the EU on 31 January 2020. Twenty-seven interviews were conducted in the pharmaceutical sector, including nineteen interviews with senior managers at eight case companies and eight interviews with experts working for trade associations and standards institutes. The interview findings were triangulated with Brexit policy and strategy documentation.

When formulating strategy, multi-national enterprises (MNEs) used worst case assumptions, while large firms, and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) gathered knowledge as part of a “wait-and-see” strategy, allowing them to reduce perceptions of heightened supply chain uncertainty. Firms then implemented reactive and/or proactive strategies to mitigate supply chain risks.

The study elaborates on strategic contingency theory by identifying two important conditions for achieving strategic fit: first, companies deploy intangible resources, such as management time, to gather information and reduce perceptions of heightened supply chain uncertainty. Second, companies deploy tangible resources (supply chain redundancies, new supply chain assets) to lessen the negative outcomes of supply chain risks. Managers are provided with an empirical framework for mitigating supply chain uncertainty and risk originating from geopolitical disruptions.

This article reviews the evidence on the benefits of innovative practice‐based social work, in the context of attempts to improve multi‐agency collaboration through structural change, procedural regulation and process redesign. It concludes that the model can generate improvements in productivity and in responses to customer needs.